The present invention relates to reclosable plastic bags and in particular to an improved method for rolling and bailing such bags for subsequent packaging.
Reclosable plastic bags for home and industrial applications are commonly formed on a bag making machine which serves to seal the side edges of a folded sheet of plastic film or of an extruded tube to form the desired bag. The finished bags are conveyed to a take-up section of the machine where an operator takes up a batch of counted bags and places them in a box or carton for final packaging either loose or in rolled bundles. The rolled bundle is particularly desireable for consumer bags since it facilitates removal of individual bags from the box.
Heretofore it has been commonplace to position an operator at the end of the bag machine to manually form the desired bundle when a desired number of bags have been accumulated. Attempts have been made to automate the take-off of finished reclosable bags and such attempts have had some limited success particularly where a bag making machine is dedicated to making one size bag only. However, since the speed of such automated equipment must necessarily be governed by the time required to form and accumulate the desired number of bags for each bundle, form the desired bundle, deliver the bundle to a carton and then return for the next take-up operation it is the slowest speed that governs the entire operation. This is generally that of the bag making equipment.
In view of the above, it is the principle object of the present invention to provide an improved automatic bag bundling machine which may operate at a sufficiently fast speed so as not to impede the bag making operation.
A further object is to provide such a machine which may be operated efficiently and brought into synchronization with virtually any speed of operation of an associated bag making machine.
A still further object is to provide such a machine in which the bags are bundled into rolls.
Still other objects and advantages will become apparent from a review of the following description of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.